The present invention relates to apparatus for processing articles, and, more particularly, to such apparatus including provision for phase control to align the instrumentality operating on the articles and the articles being operated upon.
In the manufacture of creme sandwich cookies, one method of depositing the creme filling onto the lower base cake uses a base cake conveyor having a curved section forming a half circle and a turret depositor positioned over this curved section of the conveyor. This type of turret depositor, shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,227,320, has multiple extrusion nozzles. As the turret rotates, each of the nozzles, in turn, moves over the base cake entering the curved section of the conveyor and tracks that base cake in its movement through the curve. During this motion a quantity of creme filling is extruded from the nozzle onto the base cake.
To synchronize the movement of the turret and that of the conveyor, the turret is driven by the conveyor. The turret is clamped to a shaft driven by the conveyor. The position of the nozzles with respect to the base cakes is adjusted by stopping the machinery, unclamping the turret, rotating the turret an amount estimated to provide synchronism, reclamping the turret and restarting the machinery. Frequently further adjustments are necessary and the cycle must be repeated several times.
This adjustment operation is time consuming and the base cakes flowing from the baking oven during these shutdown periods must be either dumped or collected and manually fed back onto the conveyor at the end of a production run.
The location of the icing deposits on the base cakes is influenced by a number of factors including the viscosity of the icing, the dimensions of the base cakes, wear in the conveyor and turret drive components, and the tension of the icing cut off wire. Whenever a change in any of these factors occurs, it may be necessary to realign the turret with a resulting loss of production time and product.
The difficulty of making adjustments also encourages the production of inferior product. When a misalignment occurs, the degree of deterioration of the product quality must always be weighed against the loss of time and production which will be sacrificed to restore the quality. Since small adjustments cannot be made without loss of production, there is a tendency to let the quality deteriorate until it can not longer be tolerated.